plus de recul

English translation: stand back and see things from a greater distance (literally but see below)

Advertisement

Login or register (free and only takes a few minutes) to participate in this question.

You will also have access to many other tools and opportunities designed for those who have language-related jobs (or are passionate about them). Participation is free and the site has a strict confidentiality policy.

22:00 Jan 20, 2008

French to English translations [PRO]Bus/Financial - Finance (general)

French term or phrase:plus de recul

I can't quite get my head around the precise intended meaning of "plus de recul" in this extract from a text relating to investment service markets:

Explanation:prendre du recul means literaly to take a step back but here it is figurative. So think what happens when you take a photo (old style, non-digital !): you try to get everything you want in the shot but, if you fail, you step back a bit until the frame includes the whole scene you are after.

So here it means that they will need to be able to look back over a longer period in order to come up with anything meaningful (trends...)

Answers

30 mins confidence:

plus de recul (in this context)

taking a step back

Explanation:It looks like they are comparing their suggestion (il serait nettement plus utile de...) to whatever work has been done before, and claiming that drawing up a "premier bilan" would call for the "services d'investissements" taking a step back.

Because this assessment hasn't been made (or, if so, it was done in very incomplete fashion), they don't feel confident about what kind of situation they are dealing with. So, they will need more time to get a clearer picture of what is going on in the investment market.

stand back and see things from a greater distance (literally but see below)

Explanation:prendre du recul means literaly to take a step back but here it is figurative. So think what happens when you take a photo (old style, non-digital !): you try to get everything you want in the shot but, if you fail, you step back a bit until the frame includes the whole scene you are after.

So here it means that they will need to be able to look back over a longer period in order to come up with anything meaningful (trends...)